The present invention relates to medical pumps and in particular to a system for facilitating development of custom applications for medical pump hardware.
Medical pumps, such as syringe pumps or peristaltic infusion pumps, are known for computer-controlled delivery of medication or contrast agents (henceforth medicaments) to patients over a period of time. Typically the medicament is delivered in a syringe (for a syringe pump) or a flexible bag (for peristaltic infusion pump, or ambulatory pump) that may be connected to an IV line and attached to a needle inserted into the patient. When a nurse or other healthcare professional ministering to the patient receives the medicament, the healthcare professional reviews the medicament description for correctness and enters the desired dose and rate into the pump. Other pump parameters such as alarm limits and the like may also be programmed at this time. The syringe or IV line must then be mechanically connected to the pump mechanism, the needle introduced into the patient, and the mechanism activated to begin pumping.
Medical pumps provide a platform for the controlled delivery of medicaments and as such are potentially useful in a wide variety of different medical procedures.
The use of medical pumps is limited by the availability of appropriate control software and the complexity of entering operational parameters for more than a simple medicament delivery schedule (e.g., flow rate and total volume). Some medical pump applications are common enough to justify the manufacture of specialized pumps for particular procedures, hut this approach, which results in many specialized pumps, has significant drawbacks to organizations which must manage multiple pumps for a wide variety of conditions. These organizations, including hospital and outpatient healthcare provider services, often operate many different pump designs and versions.